Beneath the Veil
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: Genos becomes fully human.
1. He Came When He Was Called

**This is a two-parter, but I wanted it actually posted on the correct day, so this part is specifically the Genos part, and tongue-in-cheek jab at the AU prompt of soulmates. There will be a part two, so expect that…. Another day. Soon. This story is also on my Ao3.**

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"You mean, you _kept_ it?!" Saitama's incredulity bounced off the walls of his tiny apartment like a pachinko ball in a machine. "Like, this whole time, he's been a cyborg just for shits and giggles?! You serious?!"

"Well," Doctor Kuseno's voice crackled through the phone receiver, "It's not that simple. His physical body was in terrible condition when I first found him, you see, and so while I slowly repaired it, he was put into the robotic one as a temporary fix. But then, he realized how much destructive power he could wield with a robotic body, and so-"

"Woah," said Saitama, gesturing in front of himself as if to hold back Doctor Kuseno's speech through the phone, "how about I just come over there? It'll make more sense to me if I actually see this with my own eyes."

The lab was everything a shounen manga promised a mad scientist's lab to be- wires hung everywhere and the air ducts inside the building were so complicated and winding that they looked as if they would come alive and attack if given the right AI and an incentive. The security system and mushroom-shaped assistant drones skittering about, on the other hand, lacked only the latter, if the way that they peeked away from their work and regarded Saitama with bright, bulbous eyes. Saitama distracted himself from their unnerving stares by looking over the various other pieces of machinery spaced evenly across the gleaming metal tables as Kuseno lead him deeper and deeper into the lab.

"His robotic body moderated sensations like touch and pain very differently than a physical one would, and it also distributed his hormones much in a more managed and moderated way than a real body experiencing puberty would, too," the doctor explained. "Don't be surprised if he becomes emotional and impulsive. He has a lot to get used to."

Saitama chuckled. "Genos? Emotional and impulsive? I've _never_ seen that before."

"Careful. He may also take your sarcasm too seriously. He's fragile, right now." The doctor held his hand over a button on the control panel on the wall. "Saitama," he said, hesitant, "I've always had my reservations about Genos spending so much time with you."

"Oh? Uh. Huh." He blinked. "Did you think I was gonna try something weird, or, like…?"

"I will admit, a reclusive, unemployed man who walks around in nothing but a cape and jumpsuit all day is not exactly the most glowing description of someone influencing Genos' decisions."

Saitama's eyebrows shot up to where his hairline should have been. "Is that what he told you?"

The doctor cracked a smile. "Heavens, no. But unlike Genos, I don't cloud my eyes with so many stars that I can't see the reality of the situation."

"Wow. Gee, thanks." Saitama cleared his throat. "I promise I'm not a weirdo. This is just," he plucked at his cape, "a hobby. And my side job."

"Oh, side job? And your main job is?" Doctor Kuseno smiled wider. "I know about you, Saitama. There's no point in hiding from me."

Saitama clenched his fists. The cherry red leather of his gloves squeaked under the pressure.

Doctor Kuseno stared back at him.

"So is Genos actually in there, or did you just bring me out to tell me what you think of me?" Saitama swallowed.

"No, Genos is here," the doctor said.

Neither of them moved. The worker bots hummed in the background as they went about their business. Their bright eyes illuminated Saitama's form, and then shyly swept away when he so much as twitched.

"Well?"

"Well?" The doctor echoed.

"Can I see him, or what?" Saitama said.

"Ah." Kuseno folded his fingers together, and then unfolded them. "Yes, well. About that. Has Genos ever told you anything about his life as a human?"

"Uh, well, he loved his parents very much, and when he was fifteen-"

"Besides that."

"Oh. Um." Saitama cleared his throat. "No. No, he hasn't."

Doctor Kuseno looked at the floor. "I see."

The robots in the lab chanced a few more glances at the man who had stolen the heart of their creator's pride and joy.

"I was hoping he would have opened up to you a little more about that before this point," the doctor said.

"His life's his business. It's not my business to pry, 'specially if he doesn't want to talk about it," Saitama said. "He's the one who insists on calling me sensei. It's not like he owes me anything, and it's not like I just _have_ to know. He's my roommate, not my, like," he shrugged, "soulmate."

"I see," Doctor Kuseno said. "So that's how it is." He frowned.

"Well, yeah. How else would it be?" Saitama asked, shrugging.

Kuseno pursed his lips, nodding.

"Yeah, so, anyway, is there anything I need to know before you let me see him, or are you just stalling?"

The doctor traced the repetitive pattern of the tiles on the floor. "He was calling for you, you know."

Saitama held his ground.

"In his sleep. It's stressful, this change. He's still recovering, so he sleeps a lot, and his dreams are vivid and disorienting. He's scared." The doctor ran a hand through his thick, styled hair. "You're invincible and unshakeable- or so he thinks. And he needs that kind of stability right now. So," the doctor took a breath. "Please be there for him, and please try and understand. He needs something to hold onto. He was so afraid to try and create any attachments after his family…" Kuseno shook his head. "Nevermind. I'm old, and I worry." He held his hand out over the control pad, and pressed the button. "Be kind, Saitama. Be the man Genos thinks you are. Please."

The door softly opened before Saitama could answer. The clean light of the lab cut a sliver through the dimness on the other side of the doorway.

Saitama slowly exhaled, and, with Kuseno and his robots as his witnesses, he walked through the door.


	2. And Then He Stayed

The dimness of the room blurred the details of its contents. Saitama's feet squished into the sudden sea of carpet extending from the shore of the laboratory tile, and he looked around for any signs of life between the four walls around him.

"Genos?" Saitama tried softly. "You in here?" His footsteps suddenly hiccuped in their rhythm, and he looked down.

Tangled around his feet was a loud strip of fabric with clothing tags and ribbon loops protruding from both ends. Saitama picked it up and rubbed the loops together between his fingers. "A baby toy?" he wondered aloud.

He came across a teddy bear a few steps further in. Saitama held it aloft in the hand opposite the first toy as if he were comparing the two objects like produce at a supermarket. "Is this, like, a nursery?"

A movement in the corner of Saitama's eye pulled his attention back to the room. He zeroed in on a mess of quilts and blankets piled on the other side. As he cautiously made his way forward, his eyes adjusted so that the bright patterns on the fabrics appeared more vivid and defined.

The pile stirred again.

"Genos?" Saitama asked, his voice a little louder.

The blankets stopped rustling, and then slowly unfurled from one another like the petals of a flower. A bandaged head with dark hair poking out between the wrappings emerged a moment later, and a face Saitama had never seen before turned around and looked at him with drowsy eyes.

Saitama stared back, and the stranger beneath the quilts followed suit.

"Uh," Saitama finally said, "I didn't realize there was gonna be more than one person in here. I'll just, uh," he looked around the dark room as if for an escape. "Go back to your nap."

"Saitama-sensei?" The stranger's tired eyes widened as his mouth formed the words. "Teacher!" The blankets flew carelessly into the air as he jumped to his feet and stumbled forward. "You're here!" He tripped on his own weakness and crashed towards the ground.

Saitama abandoned the toys in his hands and scrambled to catch the boy. He was light, despite his height. "Genos?" he asked. "Is that you?"

The boy laughed and steadied himself. His limbs trembled from the effort. "Of course!"

"Huh." Saitama looked him up and down. "Uh- _huh_. Well, that's different."

Genos followed Saitama's gaze to peer down at himself, too. His visible body was covered in bandages and a striped pair of pajama pants fell loose on his hips. "Is different a bad thing?" he asked.

"Uhm. I mean? I don't really know what I was expecting, but," Saitama shrugged. "I dunno."

"I don't understand."

"I dunno. It's not _my_ body, so I don't know what to think about it."

"Ah," Genos said. He fidgeted and struggled with his balance.

The silence hovered, heavy-handed and clumsily, over them both.

"So?" Saitama interrupted, reaching out to steady Genos again.

"So?"

Saitama gestured to Genos's torso. "How is it? You tell me."

"Oh." Genos considered his hands and rubbed them up and down his arms. "It's," he began, voice soft, "I can experience touch with greater distinction between stimuli, and," he licked his lips, "speaking is more difficult." Genos nodded. "Focusing is more difficult. And I am constantly tired. He sighed. "My head feels cloudy. It's like that time that I fell under the water and you had to pull me back up. And," his eyelids fell heavily onto his cheeks.

"And?" Saitama prompted.

"And…" Genos inhaled as his eyes fluttered back open and then fell shut again.

Saitama tapped him lightly on the arm. "Genos?"

Genos tittered backwards and then crashed into the ground.

"Genos!" Saitama tore at his scalp and then crouched down to fret over Genos' crumpled body. "Are you dead?! Answer me if you're dead." Saitama hoisted his downed friend into his arms. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. Maybe _don't_ answer me if you're dead. How about that?"

Genos only laid there, his mouth slightly parted and his eyes closed.

"You're supposed to say something, Genos." Saitama shook him gently. "Hey. _Hey_."

When Genos did not answer, Saitama shook him with greater vigor. "If I knew my day was gonna go like this, I wouldn't have dragged myself out of bed," he said, voice rising in both pitch and volume. "C'mon, get up, _get up_ , I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself if you end up dying today because I came to visit you!" Saitama fervently tapped at Genos' cheeks with the back of his hand.

Genos's head bobbed back and forth, but otherwise his sleep was unbroken.

Saitama sucked in a breath and made to put one of his fingers in his mouth. He stopped, appraised his hands, and reached around Genos to pull off his gloves and deposit them on the ground. Then, he wet one of his exposed fingers and thrust it into Genos' ear with a twist of his wrist.

The boy's expression bunched up tight and he wrenched his face away from Saitama's hand, his dark eyes suddenly wide and his body rigid and alert. He slapped his palm over where Saitama's finger had just been. "Wh-what-?!"

"Whew!" exclaimed Saitama, slumping back onto his haunches with Genos still in his arms. "I was honestly frightened I was going to put both of us through that for nothing." He wiped his soiled hand on the bright yellow pants of his jumpsuit. "Good job on not dying, Genos!"

"Dying? M-me?" Genos stuttered, his tired, breathless voice breaking through the gloom of the room. "T-teacher, I appreciate your concern, but couldn't you have checked for my pulse, or listened for a heartbeat, or perhaps _pinched me_ , even, instead of doing _that_?!"

"Well, yeah, except your heart is like a battery, so I figured that you wouldn't, uh." Saitama trailed off and looked down.

Genos's eyes glimmered through the darkness like two wet, glistening marbles as they roamed side to side, rapid and searching, over Saitama's face. His chest rose and fell steadily and his warm fingers gripped Saitama's shoulders. His soft breath cut through the silence of the room, and the blood running through him gave his cheeks and neck a color of indignation that his old face could never have shown.

"You're human," Saitama managed, cautiously poking at the uncovered skin on Genos' arms. "You've got a heartbeat and everything."

Genos watched Saitama's hands as if he could not believe that the flesh underneath them was actually there, either. Slowly, he relaxed. "Yes," he said, and then brought one of his hands between them. He opened and closed it in wonder.

"Neat," Saitama remarked.

The living sections of Genos's fingers curled and uncurled, one after the other. "You think so?"

"Well, yeah. I've never seen a human Genos before. You've got dark hair, and your eyes aren't black or yellow. Or glowing. And," Saitama tilted his head, "You don't look like you belong on the cover of a weird, cyberpunk Korean boy band album anymore."

"Huh?" Genos said.

"You're a totally normal lookin' kid!" Saitama explained, running a hand through the stray patches of hair peeking out of the bandages wrapped around Genos' head. "I can see freckles on your face, and hair under your arms! You're even scrawnier than _I_ look, too."

"Scrawny?" asked Genos. "Is that unacceptable?" He sat up and grabbed at Saitama's collar. "Are you saying that this is grounds for expulsion from your guidance?

Saitama squinted. "Maybe? I guess? I was never _actually_ your teacher, though. But I'm not gonna kick you out, if that's what you mean."

"...Uh?" Genos said. His face slowly morphed from an expression of outrage to one of bewilderment. "But I learned so much from you!"

"How to live on an extreme budget and how to eat massive amounts of udon in one sitting is not exactly-"

"I learned what it meant to wake up in the mornings and happily face the day! I learned what it meant to value the people around me in the present rather than focus on the ones that have left! Thanks to you, teacher, I know what it means to value my humanity." Genos' breathing grew heavier, and he started to shake. "And, following the merit of such lessons, I made the decision to take my old body back, therefore ensuring-"

"You became human again because of me?"

Genos nodded, smiling, his face wet and ruddy.

Saitama quirked an eyebrow. "Oh. Hm."

"Is… is that all teacher can think of to say?!" Genos sat up and thrust his face into Saitama's.

"Yeah, kind of."

Genos's voice quieted to match the softness of his tears. "Ah."

Saitama stood up, Genos still in his arms, and deposited him on the mattress that the pile of quilts and blankets had revealed when the boy had first woken up.

Then, Saitama bent down and collected the stray blankets from the floor. He piled them back over Genos one by one.

"Are you angry with me, teacher?" Genos asked, fighting to sit back up.

Saitama gently pushed him back down. "Hm. Um, yeah, actually." He nodded. "I think so."

Genos struggled back to his feet, snot unabashedly running down his face. "I'm… I'm so sorry, teacher! If it so pleases you, I can return to my old form and destroy this one, ensuring that-"

"Genos, stop talking."

"M-my apologies! I will whittle down my responses to twenty words or-"

"No. Not that, either."

"Ten words?"

"No." Saitama rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, don't talk at all for a minute, and listen." Saitama placed the teddy bear into Genos's arms and then swaddled him in another quilt.

Genos sat down and wiped at his face.

"So, you up and decided to become a human. That's great. But where are you gonna live? How are you gonna feed yourself?" Saitama gestured to the darkened nursery around them. "Obviously, you're having to physically acclimate from the ground up, right? But how're you gonna take baby steps from your old life into this new one when your doctor can't coddle you anymore?"

Genos shrank into his blanket. "I was hoping I could still live with you."

Saitama threw another quilt onto the boy. "So, like, you just assumed I'd say 'sure, Genos, that's fine, it's whatever', and take care of you?"

Genos buried himself deeper into the blankets and held the teddy bear closer. "So I cannot continue to live with you?" He started to shake.

"I never said that."

The blankets rustled as Genos, still quivering, braved facing Saitama's nonchalant expression.

"But geez, man. How impulsive and pushy can you get?" Saitama sat down on the edge of the mattress and leaned back. "This is the second time, now. You expect me to change my whole life to suit you, and you don't even ask me first. You just kinda _decided_." He looked over at Genos. "You're incredibly selfish, you know that?"

Genos trembled harder, red-faced and vulnerable. "It was supposed to be a surprise," he said, hiccuping.

"Well, I'm certainly surprised, so..."

Genos continued over Saitama. "It was a way for me to show you that I do not only value your strength, but your human qualities. I admire you so much for the person that you are separate from all of that, and that it was more important for me to emulate and learn from such inner st-strength and kindness." His words tripped over themselves. "Th-this change was meant to be a t-tes-testament that, much like how I do not see you as a weapon or a source of destructive power alone, I too no longer wanted to e-exist as such a th-thing, a-and s-so," his words broke apart into unintelligible noises, and he sobbed.

"Oh, shit," Saitama muttered. "Genos, I'm sorry. That was a little harsh for the first conversation to have with me after your, uh," he gestured to the boy under the blankets. "Yeah. All of that. Please stop crying?"

Genos proved unable.

Saitama awkwardly edged closer and tried to pat Genos on the head and wipe at his face. "Please?"

Tears continued to fall accompanied by the sound of grief.

Saitama winced. "Please don't cry? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

Genos valiantly bit his lower lip and stifled his wailing, his face fighting him with every passing second.

"See? It's okay! It's all okay. You're doing great, and everything is gonna be fine. And, uh, when you get a little stronger and more used to your body, we can go get sardines and takoyaki from that place on the-"

Genos erupted into even louder tears again, and he threw his arms around Saitama. The teddy bear fell to the ground, forgotten.

"Aw, man," Saitama said. He rubbed Genos' back. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry." He stroked his head. "I'm so sorry."

Genos smeared bodily fluid all over Saitama's neck and suit as he pulled himself closer.

"Okay, yeah, let it out. Let it out." He sighed. "You've always got a home with me if you need it."

Genos made a noise instead of words, and then gave a terrific sniffle.

"Yeah, yeah. I mean that. You don't have to worry." Saitama smiled.

They stayed that way until Genos fell into an exhausted sleep, and Saitama gently arranged him on the mattress and tucked the blankets around him.

"It's my turn to take care of you, I guess," he said, pulling the teddy bear from the floor and putting it back into Genos' arms. "Sleep well."

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 **Author's note: Thank you so much for reading, and even more to those of you who review. I think I may keep this story open and add more parts, maybe, if the reception is there for it. Either way, thanks for reading!**


	3. And So Permission was Given

"You'll take care of him," Doctor Stench said, holding both Saitama's gaze and a duffel bag. "Right?"

"Yeah," Saitama said. "Yeah, I will. I mean, I said I was gonna, and I don't really think it'd be that great to back out, so. Yeah."

"Is that really all you have to say about it?"

Saitama took the handle of the duffel bag. "I mean, is there anything else to say?"

The doctor held the bag, too, and traced over Saitama's face with his eyes.

"Um? Doctor? Can I, uh, take this or not?"

"You are a remarkably bland man," Doctor Kuseno said, relinquishing his grip.

"Oh. Hm. I've been told." Saitama shifted the bag onto his shoulder alongside the backpack and two overstuffed totes. "So, like, do I need to childproof my apartment?" He asked. "Because that might be hard."

Doctor Kuseno's small eyes closed shut and he shook his head, his thick hair brushing over his scalp with a twist opposite to that of his movement. "Not with gates and guards on the electrical sockets, no. He's not an infant. However, it might be wise to pad the edges of some of the corners. Genos still has poor balance, after all."

"Ah," said Saitama. "Oh. Can he do stairs?"

"A few at a time. But yes, with practice."

The daylight glinted brightly off of Saitama's head as he nodded. "Ah. Okay. Cool. So I guess I'll come get him tomorrow." He turned around and shuffled across Kuseno's doorstep.

"You are," Kuseno said, "so bland. Are you this way about everything?"

Saitama pivoted on his heel and looked at Kuseno. "What were you expecting?"

The doctor rubbed at his gnarled hands. "I don't know."

"Obviously somethin' else."

"I only want to make sure Genos knows exactly what he is getting into instead of getting carried away." Kuseno sighed. "I don't want him being taken advantage of, or being put in a position he can't handle, or shouldn't have to handle."

"Says the guy who gave him fire canons in his hands and a way to blow himself up whenever he feels like it."

The Doctor's gentle eyes narrowed, but his face was too awkward to form a proper glare. Then, he sighed. "I've come to regret many things, but that's the way of it. I am old and he is not. And he's so impulsive." Kuseno shook his head. "What's really there and what Genos sees- or what he wants to see- aren't always the same thing."

"You're telling me," Saitama said.

The two of them stood at the doorway in a stalemate.

"So," Saitama broke the silence first. "Am I, like, still bringing him home, or what?"

The doctor clasped and unclasped his hands, his dark eyes widening as he was pulled from his thoughts. "Oh! Ah." He swallowed and nodded. "Yes. Yes. I don't suppose I could turn around and tell Genos he couldn't go with you after all the trouble you already put him through, can I?" The doctor gave Saitama a sly look.

"So you eavesdrop, too," he said. " So much for patient privacy. Shady doctor."

"Touché," the doctor relented.

Saitama smiled and turned his back on him. "Well, I'll see you when I see you, I guess."

"Until next time," Kuseno agreed. "Though, hopefully, Genos will always be in one piece."

Saitama walked off into the daylight, but then suddenly whipped around, his teeth on edge and his fingers locked at odd angles. "Wait, wait. I just realized." He swallowed. "Does Genos have to wear diapers, and, like, do I have to change him?"

"Uh," the doctor replied intelligently.


	4. Genos Had Terrible Indigestion Later

"Teacher!" Genos' voice exploded from his scrawny body and practically shook the tiny apartment. "Of _course_ I do not need a diaper! My status of physical being is new, not my mind and rectal functions!" Genos twisted his face into an indignant frown, his face the color of the gloves hanging in Saitama's closet.

"Uh, yeah," Saitama said, peeking past his shoulder to cock an eyebrow at Genos, who was leaning on him for support. "Last I checked, you didn't pee as a cyborg. So, like, that makes your, uh, rectal functions pretty new."

"I assure you that I-!"

Saitama held up a hand. "Okay, okay, I got it. I feel kind of weird talking about this. You say you won't crap on the carpet, and I believe you. That's all that's really important."

"Teacher, I would _never-_ "

"Okay, great. So let's not talk about it anymore." Saitama swung Genos around and set him down in front of the kotatsu monopolizing most of the living room floor. "Especially since I'm about to make lunch."

"Allow me, teacher, and you rest. It's the least I can do after you so kindly opened your home back up to me-"

"Dude, you can't even walk straight for more than ten steps. Don't give me that."

"But-"

"But nothin'." Saitama threw on their pink apron and made a ruckus in the kitchen while digging out a frying pan.

Genos huffed, and tucked his knees underneath himself to sit up in his normal seiza position. He sat in pensive silence for a moment, but began to wobble in place as a look of pained concentration glossed over his features

Saitama peered over at him from the kitchen sink. "Do I need to walk you to the toilet?"

"No." Genos strained.

"Are you lying?"

"Of course not! Why would you think that?"

"Because you are totally doing the potty dance there, man."

Genos threw his head into the air, his face brightening again, more from effort than embarrassment. "I assure you I am doing no such thing."

Saitama opened his mouth to retort, but Genos chose that exact moment to topple over onto the floor.

Saitama scurried back to the living room and caught him before he made contact. "You're not allowed to break yourself the first day you're here," he said. "It's not good to hold it for so long."

"I do not need to use the restroom!" the boy said.

""Aw man, did you already…?"

"No! I only lost my balance!" Genos valiantly tried to perch back up on his toes and knees again. He again trembled from the effort, and then finally collapsed back into Saitama.

A string of hushed curses escaped Genos's mouth.

Saitama watched him try and fail a third time, and then grabbed the boy by the waist before he could make a fourth attempt. "Sorry, but that's not working, and you know it."

"I can surely sit correctly on my own if I keep trying! Practice makes perfect."

Saitama held him still. "So does physical therapy. You gotta take it easy first."

"But teacher, you did not achieve such strength through a gradual buildup in your training regimen. You gave it your all right from the beginning, and never let up for a moment. That is why you are the greatest." Genos smiled and thrust his chin in the air. "Since I wish to follow your example, I must also be ready to begin such a strenuous training schedule myself, on the morrow. My body may be weak today, but surely after pushing my limits in the extreme, I will get stronger and-"

Saitama gently squeezed Genos's midsection, and the boy's monologue transformed into a simple wheeze.

"Yeah, no. I'm not about to let you put yourself through that hell when you can't even sit up by yourself," Saitama said.

Genos's childish frown set more deeply into his face beneath his already reddened cheeks.

"Man, don't pout."

"I'm not pouting, teacher."

"Dude."

"I'm not."

"Genos."

"I am _not_!"

"Okay, whatever." Saitama picked up Genos, tuned out his protests, and set him back down with his legs facing outwards in front of him. Then, he arranged them so that they were splayed out from his torso at a wide angle. "There."

Genos thankfully remained upright, but he clung to Saitama's shoulder like a terrified cat wedging its claws into the ground for security. "This feels very undignified," he said. He squirmed and struggled to close his legs.

"It's not like my apartment's all that dignified in the first place," Saitama said, spreading Genos' legs back out and arranging the blanket of the nearby kotatsu over his feet. "Though I guess this new table is sort of an improvement."

"Indeed, it is new. How negligent of me." Genos rubbed the ends of the blanket together in his hands. "When did you acquire such a nice kotatsu, teacher?"

"Huh?" Saitama looked from Genos's wide eyes and bandaged head to the patterned blanket in his hands. The cats woven into the fabric waved up at him in perfect synchronization. "I got it yesterday."

"Was there a sale?"

Saitama snorted. "I wish."

Genos gasped. "Teacher made a purchase at full price?"

"Don't remind me."

Genos amused himself by rubbing the soft fabric of the kotatsu blanket between his fingers and tracing over the smooth lacquered wood of the tabletop. He scooted closer to the heater sitting beneath it, and then finally lay down on his side and rolled so that his entire backside was under the blanket.

Saitama returned to the living room with two bowls of rice covered in beef and a sauce, complete with chopsticks. He appraised the boy's new position, and then put one bowl on the table and plopped down on the floor with the other.

The blankets rustled, and Genos's eyes and the crown of his bandaged head appeared over the lip of the table. He pulled himself into a sitting position and picked up his bowl and chopsticks.

Then, Genos promptly spilled his lunch all over the kotatsu and the floor.

Saitama groaned.

Genos swiftly scooped as much of the food back into his bowl and set it back on the table. "It was only a momentary fit of clumsiness!" He tried to wipe at the stains with his hands. "It was never my intention to soil teacher's new, fully priced purchase!"

Saitama groaned louder. "You talk too much even as a human," he lamented.

"Th-that was exactly twenty words!"

Saitama looked to the heavens for guidance. Then, he took a deep breath and walked on his knees over to Genos, bowl in hand. "We'll worry about that mess later," he said.

"I am so sorry, Sai-"

Saitama shoved a wad of rice into Genos's mouth with his chopsticks. "I need you to be fed, not sorry."

Genos chewed and swallowed. Then, he made a face.

"What?"

"Ah, n-nothing."

Saitama eyed the boy, but then shoved another bite into his mouth.

Genos swallowed it, too, but with an egregious amount of effort. He held up a hand to the next bit of food offered to him. "I can feed myself, thank you."

Saitama swiftly sent his next piece of beef around Genos's hand and past his lips. "If you hadn't spilled it all over yourself, I might be inclined to believe you."

"W-well, I'm not, ah," Genos was interrupted by yet another morsel. He choked it down. "I'm full! Thank you!"

Saitama clicked the ends of his chopsticks together once. "Are you, now?"

"Yes! Truly! Thank you!"

Saitama sat back on his haunches and rested his chopsticks so that they perched, idle and non-threatening, on the lip of his bowl.

Then, Genos's stomach gurgled.

The chopsticks lifted off the side of the bowl. "You lying brat."

Genos's eyes were the size of saucers. "I, ah, perhaps that was the sound of my food settling in my new stoma-"

Saitama forced more food into his mouth. "I already spent enough getting a kotatsu for you! I'm not about to spoil you rotten by catering to your new tastebuds like some kinda on-call chef! You don't even know what you like anymore, do you?!"

Bits of rice flew out of Genos' mouth as he spoke. "Teacher bought this for me?"

Saitama's answer was to feed him another piece of beef smothered in soy sauce. "Don't talk with your mouth full! You'll get it everywhere you haven't already gotten it!"

"Yes, teacher!"

"Don't shout with your mouth full, either! I don't wanna look at that!"

Genos obediently clamped his mouth closed and chewed, his eyes watery and sparkling, and ate the rest of his meal without complaint.


End file.
